Here's How Ad Production Harms the Climate

Using virtual tools and curbing flights can cut emissions in ad production by up to 95%, according to agency AMV BBDO, which uses AdGreen's carbon calculator. AdGreen offers free training and tools to help reduce the emissions generated by advertising production. Anecdotal insights from agencies using the calculator show that ad production can reduce its impact on the climate by opting for more virtual shoots and fewer flights, as long as sustainability is brought into the conversation earlier in the planning stage. Media Agencies Increasingly Include Return on Carbon Along With ROI in Plans "We've been trying to push producers into using the AdGreen calculator preemptively, rather than retrospectively," said Mark Graeme, executive producer of Red Studios at AMV BBDO. "Otherwise, it's just an admin tax. You're documenting, in a detailed fashion, the harm you've already caused." Still, while curbing emissions from production is progressive, some argue that marketers must focus more on the climate impact of their product—the advertising itself, and its impact on consumption patterns and preferences. Virtual shoot skeptics All AMV BBDO producers get free training through AdGreen on climate basics, how to use the carbon calculator, where hotspots exist and how virtual production can help. With client U.K. retail chain Currys, AMV BBDO has used virtual production on about six shoots. Bringing in virtual backdrops allowed the agency to create fantastical scenes without leaving London. "That's a nice journey to go through with creatives because everyone is naturally skeptical [of virtual production] and a bit nervous to start with," Graeme said. "Once you do it, you [realize] actually this was great, and we enjoyed that. That was easy." AMV BBDO also virtually produced a film for healthcare client Bupa's sustainability strategy, with clips that appear to be shot in the desert, Arctic, rainforest and a city. Cutting travel meant that the carbon footprint of the project was roughly 95% lower than it would've been using traditional production, based on calculations using AdGreen's tool. Focusing on what makes a difference "Broadly speaking, what we've found so far is that travel and transport is always the highest," said Jo Fenn, global director of AdGreen. "Spaces is always next, then materials. And then a tiny, tiny, tiny part is disposal. There's massive emphasis on recycling and not having plastic bottles, and it's such a small thing. We've tried to get people to reshift their priorities and use the limited energy and time that they have in production to focus on the things that really make a difference." AdGreen, which was launched in 2014 as a sustainable production project, became part of the U.K.'s Advertising Association in 2020. Through that collaboration, the group created its carbon calculator, which is funded from a 0.25% levy that participating agencies add to advertising production costs and pass onto AdGreen. "Having this industry dataset—however early in its stage it is—it's still useful to be able to draw some parallels from," Fenn said. The average emissions per project increased from March to November, Fenn said, but that's largely due to the size of the projects measured. Next year, Fenn hopes to find a major brand or agency willing to partner with AdGreen on a case study to demonstrate how carbon budgeting on ad production shapes its decision-making. "It'd be such an amazing example of leadership for a big agency or big brand come out and say, 'We've measured. [We don't have an] exact picture of what we're at, but we know enough to be able to say we're going to set a carbon budget of x,'" Fenn explained. Long overdue Still, some sustainability experts argue that measuring and reducing emissions generated by ad production is merely overdue housekeeping. While important to understand, the carbon cost of ad production pales in comparison to the impact that advertising has in driving the consumption of climate-harming products. "This is absolutely fixing something which is very overdue to be fixed," Solitaire Townsend, co-founder and chief solutionist at sustainability-focused agency Futerra, told Adweek. "It must never become a distraction from the actual material impact of your work, which is the emissions from your influence."

Sustainability News

How Agencies Cut Climate Impact in Ad Production

AMV BBDO is using AdGreen's carbon calculator tool

Kathryn Lundstrom

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Kathryn Lundstrom